The Beaubien sat in the rounded window of the breakfast room. Carmen nestled at her feet. The maid had just removed the remains of the light luncheon.
“Dearest, please, please don’t look so serious!”
The Beaubien twined her fingers through the girl’s flowing locks. “I will try, girlie,” she said, though her voice broke.
Carmen looked up into her face with a wistful yearning. “Will you not tell me?” she pleaded. “Ever since Monsignor Lafelle and Father Waite were here you have been so quiet; and that was nearly a week ago. I know I can help, if you will only let me.”
“How would you help, dearie?” asked the woman absently.
“By knowing that God is everywhere, and that evil is unreal and powerless,” came the quick, invariable reply.
“My sweet child! Can nothing shake your faith?”
“No. Why, if I were chained to a stake, with fire all around me, I’d know it wasn’t true!”
“I think you are chained––and the fire has been kindled,” said the woman in a voice that fell to a whisper.
“Then your thought is wrong––all wrong! And wrong thought just can’t be externalized to me, for I know that ‘There shall no mischief happen to the righteous,’ that is, to the right-thinking. And I think right.”